No review would be complete without a discussion of negative(s). I cranked the volume up to 10 and put on a little reverb. I also recorded some clean tones using a simulated Fender вЂ65 Deluxe Reverb Amplifier. I start with the neck pickup then make my way to the bridge pickup. Here is a little recording I did of the Retromatic playing dirty tones on the OR120. The bridge humbucker is one of my favorite aspects of this guitar.

Matt Gleeson did an incredible job designing pickups that fit the characteristics of this guitar. Matched with that amp my conclusion is that this guitar is one bad-to-the-bone tone machine! The pickups on this bad-boy are the crowning jewel of the guitar. After playing the guitar acoustically, I fired up Amplitube (my Budda is packed away right now) and matched the guitar to an Orange OR120 amp head and a 4x12 Orange PPC cabinet. I naturally gravitated to some Izzy Stradlin riffs (a notorious hollow body player). This was great for a wide variety of music, especially rock (but perhaps not metal :). For strings, it looked/felt like it had DвЂ™Addario 10вЂ™s on it, though I still need to verify that.ДЄs with many guitars that have some hollowness (thinline in this case), the natural guitar sound was very lively and dynamic compared to an all solid body electric guitar. The action was low (but not too low), no string buzz, no problems with bends and so on.

I picked up the guitar, tuned it, and immediately began playing around with it. Upon opening the case I was rewarded with a candy apple red beauty looking back at me. The guitar came in a nice quality fitted black hardshell case. The neck pickup is a P90 Alnico V wound at 7.1k/7.3k.Д®verything sounds amazing on paper right? But how does this thing look and play in real life? Now that weвЂ™ve gotten the little details out of the way, letвЂ™s talk about the actual guitar we got for review. The bridge humbucker on this guitar is Alnico II wound at 7.9k/8.0k. MattвЂ™s pickups are used by a variety of pros and are quite highly regarded.

The pickups on this guitar were designed by Matt Gleeson, of MontyвЂ™s Pickups in London and were created to be a match for the guitars body shape and acoustic characteristics. The Retromatic also will be available with the Stetsbar tremolo system as an option. You can get the guitar with a single humbucker pickup, OR a humbucker AND a P90 pickup (with or without a 6-way varitone pickup switch). There are also some different pickup combinations available. There are seven different retro finishes, including natural, teal green, honey sunburst, ivory, black, gold, and candy apple red. There are a variety of options for the Retromatic. The laminated maple archtop single cutaway contoured body has a mahogany sustain block and a single вЂњFвЂќ hole. The neck has black binding and Mother of Pearl inlays. The 22 fret maple guitar neck has a 628mm (24.72 inches) scale with a rosewood fret board. A couple months later I got my hands on their new Retromatic P2, in candy apple red color.Д¬ompared to the other guitars in the Peerless lineup, the Retromatic is a smaller body, thinline style electric. When I saw that Peerless was at NAMM 2013 showing off their brand new electric guitar model called the Retromatic, I knew IвЂ™d have to get a hold of one to do a review. The Peerless guitars also appeared to be extremely popular amongst jazz guitar players, many who have been aware of the brand and reputation for a long time. Some web searching led me to many forum threads where people were showing off either their Peerless labeled guitars or their prized Peerless built Epiphones (some beautiful Casinos, etcвЂ¦) and raving about the quality. IвЂ™ll admit that until recently I did not know much about the Peerless branded guitars. It really is a вЂњsoup to nutsвЂќ operation, where they handle all aspects of the guitar building process, leading to some quality guitars. The company purchases raw materials and lumber and does all the building, assembly and finish work in their own facility. In 2007 Peerless began releasing carved archtop guitars under its own name. Since 1970 Peerless, headquartered in Korea, has been producing very high quality guitars for manufacturers including Epiphone and Gretsch. Peerless Guitars may be a name that isnвЂ™t as recognizable in the United States as some other big brands, but you are likely already very familiar with their work.

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